I'm not Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, or Joyce Kulhawik, and I don't pretend to be. But this is a heavy season for movie going, with the industry trying to distribute its best in anticipation of the next round of Oscars. My husband, sister and I have joined the legions of those willing to suspend video renting, plunk …
Month: December 2014
Sizing up Deval Patrick’s legacy
I confess to being seduced by Governor Deval Patrick. Not literally, of course, but almost always being won over by his charm. It happened the very first time I met him at a house party, nine years ago, when he promised to use the power of the state to reduce property taxes. That didn't quite work …
NYPD officer assassination fuels furor
I have never been a fan of Al Sharpton. I look at him and see Tawana Brawley, the late eighties phoney rape case that Sharpton embraced in such an inflammatory way. I have always seen him as someone who has been eager to exploit racial issues to advance his own career. And that's usually true. But, in …
John Winthrop Sears – they don’t make ’em that way any more
John Winthrop Sears would have been 84 years old last Thursday. He died November 4th. As far as I can tell, he was the last of a breed. Family and friends gathered the evening of his birthday at Christ Church Longwood in Brookline. The event was a musical remembrance, a magnificent program he had planned …
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Cuba: Obama’s push for legacy
Hmm, the country has an authoritarian regime, a Communist credo, a record of human rights violations, no open elections or free press, and we're liberalizing relations with it? How can we do that? Well, it worked with China, Richard Nixon's legacy foreign policy initiative. And Vietnam too. Why not with Cuba? To paraphrase President Obama, …
Boston 2024 Olympic bid: we could – but should we?
Yesterday, the city of Rome included itself among the potential hosts for the 2024 summer Olympics. Now, where would you rather be that August - Boston or Rome? Italian Premier Matteo Renzi said, "it's unacceptable not to try." Boston's self-appointed elite apparently feel that way. Today, Boston's bid boosters are in San Francisco to persuade the United States Olympic Committee to choose Boston over San …
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From Selma to Ferguson to Boston
It's hard for millennials to imagine that not so long ago, blacks, who Constitutionally had the right to vote since 1870, were routinely blocked from exercising that right. But antagonistic county commissioners and viciously contrived regulatory barriers in the South routinely denied even the ability to register. In Selma, Alabama, a majority of the people were black, …
Mark Wahlberg, meet Nam Phan
Mark Wahlberg, star of box office hits Boogie Nights, The Perfect Storm, The Departed, Lone Surivor and more, and executive producer of Entourage and Boardwalk Empire, was one vicious dude in his teens. His rap sheet from the 1980's reads like a series of scripts from brother Donnie's NYPD series Blue Bloods. Of particular relevance today …
Rosenberg’s partner makes mess for incoming Senate president
It's not the same story as Steve "Hot Buns" Gobie undermining the reputation of Congressman Barney Frank. That 1985 scandal involved Gobie's illegal prostitution activity based in Frank's apartment, of which the Congressman was ignorant. But it was also a liaison just before the politician's coming out and it also called into question the public figure's judgment. The …
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Pay hikes for top state officials no laughing matter
Governor-elect Charlie Baker said in no uncertain terms that "now is not the time to be talking about pay increases on Beacon Hill." No doubt a majority of the public agrees with him. The trouble is: There's never a good time to be talking about pay increases for politicians - not even, or perhaps especially …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 